Tulfo hits Tongol over verdict date

Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo on Monday urged the Senate impeachment court to reprimand its spokesperson over what he called recurring unauthorized statements that seemed to preempt the court, particularly on reports that a verdict in the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte is targeted for 16 December.

Atty. Reginald Tongol gave the timeline to the media on Friday.

Tulfo, however, derided the disclosure as a potential overreach, noting that this was not the first time the spokesperson had made similar pronouncements without allegedly consulting the collective position of the senator-judges.

Tulfo argued that Tongol’s statement about the timeline gives the public the impression that the impeachment court has already “prejudged” the VP’s impeachment case, potentially undermining the impartiality of the ongoing trial and warrants a sanction.

“You issued a warning to the spokesperson of the prosecution in the same manner that you issued a warning to the spokesperson of the defense. It’s about time that we issued a warning to our own spokesperson…Maybe it’s about time that we admonish him, Mr. Presiding Officer,” Tulfo said partly in Filipino at the outset of Day 33 of the trial.

“This isn’t the first time. He has messed up and failed many times before. It just keeps happening over and over again,” he lamented.

Presiding Officer Chiz Escudero clarified that Tongol’s statements were “not entirely accurate” and were just mere calculations based on the total number of trial days requested in the pre-trial order by both the defense (30 trial days) and the prosecution (62 trial days).

“It’s based on math, not based on the realities on the ground of the trial. It may be a working mathematical equation, but certainly not based on reality, much less is that the point of view of the court,” Escudero said in response.

“So that’s fake news?” Tulfo asked. “Yes,” Escudero replied, adding that Tongol would be warned over unauthorized projections.

Still, Tulfo said Tongol should refrain from blindsiding the court and making pronouncements that do not represent the impeachment collective viewpoint of senator-judges.

“Good for him; he knows a lot. As for us senator-judges, my colleagues, there are things we don’t know. We’re just caught off guard when he goes in the media. In a sense, he is preempting us,” he lamented.